The Atlantic - How the Video-Game Industry Already Lost Out in the Gun-Control Debate.As it happens, that's just what happened to games (and popular media more generally) in the NRA's good guy with a gun response to the Newtown shooting. Guns aren't a factor in gun violence for the NRAŚrather, games, media, and law enforcement failures must take the blame. Once the terms of the debate are set like this (and set they very much were thanks to the over-the-top bravado in this press conference) then it's very hard to extract oneself from the debate without shifting the frame, without changing the terms of the debate.

I certainly believe that the White House would like nothing more than to see an end to mass gun murders in America's elementary schools. But the fact remains that gun violence takes place every day, all across this country, at a rate of dozens of deaths a day, and as the leading cause of death among African-American youth. But when the vice president establishes a task force on gun control and violence that includes the media industries that the NRA has once again chosen as their patsies after a particularly heinous and public example of gun violence, all it can do is shift attention away from guns.

IGN - Let's Talk About Violent Video Games.Distinctions between games for adults and those for kids are fairly clear these days, thanks to the Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB). Formed in 1994, the ESRB rates all video games as a guide for parents similar to the way movies are rated by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). Games are rated ranging from E for Everyone and T for Teen to M for Mature, 17+.

There is a fundamental misunderstanding that games are only for children. This needs to change for the 'violence in games' dialogue to advance.

RollinThundr wrote on Jan 11, 2013, 12:08:You're missing the forest from the trees, a corrupt political faction in the US could push to become a totalitarian state, the only way they would succeed at that is to first strip US citizens of their guns. That's why the 2nd amendment is in place, to prevent that from ever happening.

And do you honestly think you, or any other cabal of armed insurrection, stand any sort of chance should the US decide to turn its current military power on its own citizens? Your pistols and shotguns against guys with M4s, body armor, drones, and cruise missiles. Let me know how that goes. Probably about as well as my last game of XCOM.

As much as I am with you on the heart and soul and purpose of the Second Amendment, one must also concede that it has been rendered obsolete by technological progress and economies of scale. We are already at the full mercy of this government, for better or worse.

The most dangerous people in America are these nutters like Alex Jones, which combine the fantasy of the Second Amendment in the modern age with the mental instability of rampant conspiracist thought.

Bodolza wrote on Jan 11, 2013, 13:52:But they don't have that right, already. You can't buy most of the arms available to the military. We already have massive restrictions on what normal citizens can purchase. If you actually believe "well regulated militia" was meant to pertain to anyone, the second amendment is already meaningless. The government already came for your arms.

If you support the status quo, you already support gun control.

Err ok. I never said I didn't support gun control and that I want people to be able to buy military grade weaponry. I'm just saying the right to bear arms exists and there are too many guns in America to realistically accomplish anything drastic at this stage. People talk about gun control but there's a root cause and effect going on here, the desire to own and use guns. That's a cultural issue that needs to be addressed before any gun control laws are going to have a meaningful impact.

Creston wrote on Jan 11, 2013, 13:49:I hadn't even heard of the Aurora guy being alive still.

He was judged fit to stand trial yesterday, and is facing 166 counts of murder and attempted murder, including 12 counts of premeditated first degree murder with malice and indifference. Arraignment postponed earlier today.

Verno wrote on Jan 11, 2013, 13:27:I think people have a right to bear arms and until its removed from the constitution somehow the debate is kinda pointless.

But they don't have that right, already. You can't buy most of the arms available to the military. We already have massive restrictions on what normal citizens can purchase. If you actually believe "well regulated militia" was meant to pertain to anyone, the second amendment is already meaningless. The government already came for your arms.

I hadn't even heard of the Aurora guy being alive still. Hopefully they'll order his legs and arms sawed off with a chainsaw, and then throw his stumpless carcass to the worms.

But he'll probably get 5 years because he had a "bad childhood."

In any case, I think the first thing to do is to order media to stop making such a fucking spectacle over this. DO NOT announce the fucker's name. DO NOT spend any time investigating his past. DO NOT give these fucking assholes the chance to go out with a bang and 15 minutes of infamy.

Creston wrote on Jan 11, 2013, 13:28:And unfortunately, deterrents won't help prevent this kind of tragedy, because so far every single nutbag has wound up killing himself. (Afaik.) You can threaten people with a million years in jail plus hardcore gangrape every day, but it won't really matter to them if they just kill themselves at the end of their shooting spree.

Creston

Well, the guy in Aurora is currently on trial, so I guess not all. But deterrents won't work on these people because they're not rational. They are insane to the point where they engage in mass homicide.

In those cases, prosecuting the offenders is too late - you have to regulate the mechanism of supply. However, while background checks of criminal records are relatively easy, medical records are routinely protected, especially psychiatric records.

So how can you tell if someone buying a black gun is under treatment for paranoid schizophrenia? Because that's what a lot of the perpetrators have. Their paranoia makes them more likely to seek out weapons, and their condition makes them completely irrational, so you have no idea what they're going to do with the weapons they have at any given time.

RollinThundr wrote on Jan 11, 2013, 12:31:Look at the list of people performing these shootings, most if not all of them were/are on medications and have mental disorders. So what's more rational, making knee jerk reactions calling for gun bans, rather than look at the symptoms of why these shootings are happening is like putting a bandaid on someone who's arm just got cut off with a chainsaw.

So what's your solution? Yes, most of them have been depressed and on medication. Obviously there's an issue there. Those that weren't on medication were likely just undiagnosed.

But what's your solution? How do you turn the knowledge that some depressed and medicated people buy guns and shoot up public places into stopping this from happening? Do you take the right to buy guns from these people? Well, it's a right, so that'd be difficult, the NRA would still oppose it, and many of them took guns someone else purchased, anyway. Do you lock these people up? Well, that seems easy to abuse and the vast majority of mentally ill people never go on murder sprees. Do you spend more on treatment? That doesn't help the undiagnosed, and I thought you opposed government spending? Our medical health institutions, which were fairly rotten to begin with, were all cut decades ago to decrease government spending.

What is your solution? There are only a few levers we're capable of pulling. Making acquiring guns more difficult seems to be a lever that would have an impact and is one we can easily pull. Can we get rid of all guns? No, and that'd be stupid, anyway. But can we make it more difficult for high capacity magazines to be acquired? Hell yeah.

RollinThundr wrote on Jan 11, 2013, 12:20:Yeah I'm sure people in Germany said the same thing as they were turning their guns over.

So what you're saying is we can't try and do anything about a bad problem happening right now because there's another possible - but highly improbable - problem that might happen? And somehow that argument makes sense to you?

What I'm saying is treat the source of why these ill people are doing these heinous things. Mental health issues.

Cutter wrote on Jan 11, 2013, 12:31:Meanwhile, back in reality...I'm a firm believer that guns aren't the problem. I do not believe anyone has a right to bear guns anymore than they have a right to drive - it's a privilege. If your argument is hunting then learn how to bow hunt. And people like RT are living proof there are far too many kooks and wackos out there with guns. How thorough is a background check when the feds are running 14,000 of them per day? I think psych tests should be mandatory to weed out potential psychopaths. Fines and punishment related to firearms misuse should be extremely stiff. In possession of or used in a crime should be an automatic 10 years for a first offense. Create a strong enough deterrent and then only the most hardcore outlaws will risk it.

I agree that it should be treated as a privilege, not as a right, but it's hard to try to get that rammed across all 50 states, plus of course it won't do anything about the current glut of weapons already in circulation.

If some wackass gets rejected by Walmart to buy an assault rifle, he'll just buy one from his neighbor.

And unfortunately, deterrents won't help prevent this kind of tragedy, because so far every single nutbag has wound up killing himself. (Afaik.) You can threaten people with a million years in jail plus hardcore gangrape every day, but it won't really matter to them if they just kill themselves at the end of their shooting spree.

I think people have a right to bear arms and until its removed from the constitution somehow the debate is kinda pointless. Guns are a symbol of freedom to Americans more than anything else. Some AR15s aren't going to stop Uncle Sam if he wants to get Joe Bob but it helps JB sleep better at night and he can flex his machismo a bit with dreams of defending his honored home from a villain. There are many places in this country where guns are a part of the social culture, you can't change that without changing the culture itself.

Too many places sell gun, they aren't difficult to smith and weapon trafficking is too easily facilitated for radical gun control to work. Realistically you can't really stop this, all you can do is help shape future generations to value them differently through education, social programs and encouraging youth to go into different activities.

RollinThundr wrote on Jan 11, 2013, 12:20:Yeah I'm sure people in Germany said the same thing as they were turning their guns over.

So what you're saying is we can't try and do anything about a bad problem happening right now because there's another possible - but highly improbable - problem that might happen? And somehow that argument makes sense to you?

Cutter wrote on Jan 11, 2013, 12:31:Meanwhile, back in reality...I'm a firm believer that guns aren't the problem. I do not believe anyone has a right to bear guns anymore than they have a right to drive - it's a privilege. If your argument is hunting then learn how to bow hunt. And people like RT are living proof there are far too many kooks and wackos out there with guns. How thorough is a background check when the feds are running 14,000 of them per day? I think psych tests should be mandatory to weed out potential psychopaths.

I would agree that this is part of it. How many of the mass shootings could have been prevented if the perpetrators had received proper medical treatment? If you agree that guns aren't the problem, then we need to put the focus where these shootings can be prevented; health and mental health treatment and education.

Fines and punishment related to firearms misuse should be extremely stiff. In possession of or used in a crime should be an automatic 10 years for a first offense. Create a strong enough deterrent and then only the most hardcore outlaws will risk it.

They already are pretty stiff. There's a $10,000 fine and possible 10 years prison time just for lying on a Form 4473. I cam across this last night, it's satire, but every regulation and penalty he mentions in it is current US federal firearms law. Many of the restrictions that gun control advocates are debating now are already in place. As the death penalty has proven, strong deterrents don't really work in preventing crime.

The fact is guns do kill - that's their entire purpose - and they do it remarkably well. Just look at that knife attack in the school in China that same day as Sandy Hook. You can always run away or fight back against a knife or a club, not so with a gun. America's culture of pervasive paranoia is the true culprit though. That's why other countries have almost as many guns per capita and none of the gun violence. So until that changes nothing else will change regardless of what's banned or not.

The last figure I saw was 88 guns per 100 people in the US. Approximately 12,000 violent crimes committed with firearms in 2011 (or was it 2012, can't remember, but it was one of those two), and of those 12,000 crimes about 350 were committed with "assault weapons" of the rifle variety. Another figure estimates between 1.5 million and 2.5 million violent crimes are prevented every year by lawful gun owners (of course that figure is hard to track because how do you define a violent crime that is never committed).

Finally, according to this list there have been 64 mass school shootings in the world since 1913. Is it really as prolific as the media makes it out to be?

sauron wrote on Jan 11, 2013, 12:03:Mass exterminations in totalitarian regimes have nothing at all to do with arms control in the US. What on earth are you thinking?

He doesn't think, he reacts. Particularly when he forgets to wear his tinfoil hat. Yes, I can see how well the average U.S. citizen would be defended from the entire U.S. military if it brought its entire weight to bear on the populace. Tanks, jets, missiles, drones, etc. oh yeah, fending them off with a few guns should be a cakewalk. And he's wrong as usual, plenty of people had guns back then, they were just outweighed by more people with more and bigger guns. Having guns certainly didn't help Cambodia when Nixon decided to engage in the illegal bombing of Laos, Cambodia and Thailand that killed and estimated 2 million people. Which proves my point entirely.

Meanwhile, back in reality...I'm a firm believer that guns aren't the problem. I do not believe anyone has a right to bear guns anymore than they have a right to drive - it's a privilege. If your argument is hunting then learn how to bow hunt. And people like RT are living proof there are far too many kooks and wackos out there with guns. How thorough is a background check when the feds are running 14,000 of them per day? I think psych tests should be mandatory to weed out potential psychopaths. Fines and punishment related to firearms misuse should be extremely stiff. In possession of or used in a crime should be an automatic 10 years for a first offense. Create a strong enough deterrent and then only the most hardcore outlaws will risk it.

The fact is guns do kill - that's their entire purpose - and they do it remarkably well. Just look at that knife attack in the school in China that same day as Sandy Hook. You can always run away or fight back against a knife or a club, not so with a gun. America's culture of pervasive paranoia is the true culprit though. That's why other countries have almost as many guns per capita and none of the gun violence. So until that changes nothing else will change regardless of what's banned or not.

health care is a right, living wages are a right, having the means to protect yourself is a privilege. liberal logic.

I already said why the 2nd amendment is there, and it's not for hunting. PEOPLE kill, a gun is a tool, much like a knife, axe, or sword is a tool.

sauron wrote on Jan 11, 2013, 12:03:Mass exterminations in totalitarian regimes have nothing at all to do with arms control in the US. What on earth are you thinking?

He doesn't think, he reacts. Particularly when he forgets to wear his tinfoil hat. Yes, I can see how well the average U.S. citizen would be defended from the entire U.S. military if it brought its entire weight to bear on the populace. Tanks, jets, missiles, drones, etc. oh yeah, fending them off with a few guns should be a cakewalk. And he's wrong as usual, plenty of people had guns back then, they were just outweighed by more people with more and bigger guns. Having guns certainly didn't help Cambodia when Nixon decided to engage in the illegal bombing of Laos, Cambodia and Thailand that killed and estimated 2 million people. Which proves my point entirely.

Meanwhile, back in reality...I'm a firm believer that guns aren't the problem. I do not believe anyone has a right to bear guns anymore than they have a right to drive - it's a privilege. If your argument is hunting then learn how to bow hunt. And people like RT are living proof there are far too many kooks and wackos out there with guns. How thorough is a background check when the feds are running 14,000 of them per day? I think psych tests should be mandatory to weed out potential psychopaths. Fines and punishment related to firearms misuse should be extremely stiff. In possession of or used in a crime should be an automatic 10 years for a first offense. Create a strong enough deterrent and then only the most hardcore outlaws will risk it.

The fact is guns do kill - that's their entire purpose - and they do it remarkably well. Just look at that knife attack in the school in China that same day as Sandy Hook. You can always run away or fight back against a knife or a club, not so with a gun. America's culture of pervasive paranoia is the true culprit though. That's why other countries have almost as many guns per capita and none of the gun violence. So until that changes nothing else will change regardless of what's banned or not.

Beamer wrote on Jan 11, 2013, 12:12:Well, we shouldn't much care what the NRA has to say about protecting us from an oppressive, tyrannical, authoritarian government when their primary solution right now is putting armed government employees around all of our children all day long.

Regardless, the founding fathers weren't always correct.

Also regardless, at this point I'm not sure the path we're heading down of school shootings every damn week is really any worse than our government getting more oppressive.

Lastly, no one rational is saying "TAKE ALL THE GUNS!" much like no one rational is saying "IF I DON'T KEEP MY BILLION BULLET MAGAZINE THEN OBOOZO WILL BECOME POL POT OVER THE NEXT 4 YEARS!"

No one rational...

You shouldn't care what the NRA has to say anyway or blame them for a few mentally unstable screwjobs going on a spree. Yet that's what the left does, blame the guns themselves, the NRA, video games, etc rather than the person doing the shooting. It's devoid of logic.

I didn't say that was his plan, all I said was the reason the 2nd amendment is there. Why do Liberals hate the constitution and bill of rights so much?

Every week huh? Hyperbole much?

Not by much. We had 7 school shootings in 2012. We had one YESTERDAY! We're pretty close to one a month at this point, with the frequency increasing.

And yes, we should blame the people. But in most cases they're dead, along with a pool of other people. I'm not quite certain what blaming them will do for us. You love your fucking "personal responsibility" soapbox, but let's hold Adam Whateverhisnamewas from Newtown personally responsible. Should we hang his corpse? Maybe his mother did a bad job with him and we should punish her! Wait, she's dead, too...

We seem to have trouble holding these people personally responsible. We can blame them, but that doesn't seem to do much to stop this. We can, you know, diagnose them as nuts and lock them up, but how many misdiagnoses would we have?

Shut up about the Constitution and Bill of Rights. I'm 99% certain that, in the past, we've proven you know nothing about them. Not 100%, but if I look through your history there are probably some pretty gaping misunderstandings out there. Quite certain you've never studied any Conlaw...

Look at the list of people performing these shootings, most if not all of them were/are on medications and have mental disorders. So what's more rational, making knee jerk reactions calling for gun bans, rather than look at the symptoms of why these shootings are happening is like putting a bandaid on someone who's arm just got cut off with a chainsaw.

I made that comment because it's the left that are always looking to strip people of their rights, and it's 99% of the time those on the left that hate the 2nd amendment or even call for dissolving the constitution outright calling it "outdated"

Speaking as a veteran, it worked for the Iraqis for 8 years, one year which I witnessed first hand, and is still working for the Afghanis. It didn't work out the way they intended, but they did plenty of damage. Don't underestimate someone who has the will.

Not to mention is such a thing did take place (another revolution/civil war), there would likely be many mass defections and refusals to obey orders on behalf of the military (just as happened in Libya).

RollinThundr wrote on Jan 11, 2013, 12:20:Yeah I'm sure people in Germany said the same thing as they were turning their guns over.

Comparing the US government to the nazis could get you arrested and your post has been reported.

lol okay. Pretending that something like that could never happen here is na´ve at best. I'm not sure of your political leanings but I question why liberals put so much faith in the government doing and knowing what's best for them.

They don't. They're just not unreasonable about things like you tend to be. "OMG MEDICAL CARE IS NAZIISM!"

RollinThundr wrote on Jan 11, 2013, 12:20:Yeah I'm sure people in Germany said the same thing as they were turning their guns over.

Comparing the US government to the nazis could get you arrested and your post has been reported.

lol okay. Pretending that something like that could never happen here is na´ve at best. I'm not sure of your political leanings but I question why liberals put so much faith in the government doing and knowing what's best for them.